Letter to Michigan Speaker of the House: Senate Bills 567 and 568
Representative Joe Tate The Honorable Speaker of the House Dear Speaker Tate, As you prepare your list of priorities for the remainder of the year, we urge you to include Senate Bills 567 and 568 which make the critical changes needed to improve the Read by Grade Three law. Michigan is facing a reading crisis among early elementary students. Recent data show that more than half of Michigan’s third graders have a "reading deficiency," reinforcing that Michigan struggles to provide these students the most important skill they will need to succeed in learning. Decades of research shows that promoting [...]
Testimony before the House Education Committee on Dyslexia
Good morning, Representatives, and thank you for allowing me to testify in favor of Senate Bills 567 and 568. My name is Ben Locke, and I’m the Michigan Executive Director of Teach Plus, an education nonprofit that seeks to empower excellent, experienced, and diverse teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that advance equity, opportunity, and student success. I’m also a former middle school and high school teacher who cringes at the memory of how I used to teach reading skills to students. Currently, I work with teachers who have been advocating for these bills as [...]
Testimony before the House Education Committee on Dyslexia
Good afternoon chair and members of the committee. My name is Rebecca Irby, I am the founder and President of PEAC Institute, an NGO in special consulting status at the United Nations and winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize as a coalition member of ICAN International. I am also the director of Transformational Change at New Detroit, A Racial Justice Organization. I am here today to lend my voice and support to the legislation on dyslexia and a reliable and valid universal screening assessment for the purpose of identifying pupils with dyslexia early. SB567 is critical to student [...]
Testimony on Fair Funding before the Senate PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee
Michigan Partnership for Equity and Opportunity Testimony before the Senate PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee Good afternoon members of the Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12 and thank you Sen. Camilleri for the invitation to testify. We appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today about what Michigan can learn from leading education states’ school funding systems and how such models could make a significant difference in helping Michigan close opportunity gaps for all its students. I am Alice Thompson, chair of the education committee of the Detroit branch of the NAACP, CEO of BFDI Educational Services, Inc., and former CEO of Black Family [...]